We are still kicken it here at Cafe Fabrications. It's been a minute since my last post. We are alive and well. CF attended the AMA, Mid Ohio Vinatge motorcycle show in July. We did so with great success I might add. We put our CB750 into the Cafe Racer Magazines motorcycle show and ended up taking home, Best in Show, and Peoples Choice. Pretty Damn Cool if we say so ourselves. Thank God our Friend Michael M was there to let us know we had won an award. Jesse and me were too busy at our booth to make it to the awards ceremony. Michael was yelling at us from the show that we had won and we needed to come inside. (we were located about 35yards from the show) It was pretty damn comical. Here are a few pics of some things we finished up for the show. We are off to Barbers in Oct so come say hey if your there. Our Awards!

Our Rear set on a 74 Honda CB350 Four Project we're doing.

Our Swing Arm on the same CB350 Four

Here's a pic of Me on the (Left) Ian Kennedy (middle) Jesse (right). We meet Ian over the weekend. This guy is the real deal. He started out as a Norton dealer in the early 60's. Was one of the first to build a now famous Triton. Ian owns and runs a wholesale business supplying motorcycle parts to the world. This guy has probably forgotten more about Brit bikes then most will ever know. He has restored hundreds of bikes over the yrs. It was a pleasure to have been able to meet him.

(photo cred Mike Brown

Who say's you can't succeed in Detroit?

That's exactly what Cafe Fabrications did do in the Motor City @ the 60th Annual Autorama. It's been a full week since we have been back and let me tell you we needed that week to recover. The CF booth was non-stop action all day. You would have thought we were giving out free bikes and beer. Well we did have some free beer to select people... Cafe Fabrications had a lot of our new pieces on display and some prototypes. We even show cased the 73, 350 Four engine from a project we're working on. Here's a few pics hope you enjoy. Remember our store is up with lots of parts for your Honda. Want the look of Cafe Fabrications bike? Well now you can.

Going to Detroit

As a lot of you are already aware. I have done a poor job of keeping up on our blog. For over a year now Cafe Fabrications has been working on developing and making parts for Cafe Racer style motorcycles. Leaving the current build in the corner collecting a bit of dust. Most of the design for our line of parts is completed and ready for your grubby little fingers. We have worked very hard over the past several months to bring you what we believe are some of the best bolt on parts available for your vintage bike. We are continually working on improving our designs to make your bike look even more unique. Cafe Fabrications has a booth in Detroit Feb 24-26, 2012 at the Detroit Autorama. Our booth is 532A so come check us out if your in the area. We will have our bike and a line of parts we developed and will offer after the show. Below are few pics of what we have been working on over the past 2yrs. We also have Triple Trees, and Carbon Fiber clip- ons that will be displayed at the show. Those are all in the works. So come say hello to Jesse and Grant I know they will appreciate it. Cheers see you next weekend!

Long Time

Well ladies and Gents it sure has been awhile since CF checked in. No need to worry though we are working like dogs on some new stuff. Cafe Fabrications will be launching a parts line very soon so keep coming back and you will see what we have been working on. Here's a sneak peak at one of those items. Enjoy...

Back to The Grind!!

Well after what seems like weeks of cutting and grinding. Blowing dirty snot rockets in the shower the bike has all the unwanted tabs removed. Most all the welds are cleaned up just in time to re-weld them. This part of the build is always the hardest. The work is dirty, loud, and hard. It feels like the bike will never come together at this point of the build. But somewhere theirs a living soul in that pile of metal mayhem. Can't wait to meet him or her!

BSA parked on the streets of NYC

Losing Weight!

Losing weight on these bikes is easy when you take off all the unnecessary crap. The pile you see here weighs in at a whopping 90lbs. Our first bike we never kept track of the exact weight of how much we took off / put on. I have been weighing each piece that comes off. I will then weigh each piece that goes on. Tedious yes but interesting indeed. The bike is down to bare bones and waiting to have all the unused mounting tabs cut off. The welds will all be ground down and cleaned up as well. Then to the blasters to see whats under that paint.

Two's Better Than One!!

Well here we go again. Cafe Fabrications picked up this beauty about a month ago in Long Island, NY. Funny we had no intentions of building the same bike again. But couldn't pass up a good deal. 2nd owner, Title in hand bike runs good and No Rust in the tank. $400.00 Out The Door! Sorry for the poor pics its sitting in my garage. 1978 Honda CB750k Part 2... We have some really cool tricks up our sleeve for this project.

Vroom... Vroom...

WINNING!!!

Cafe Fabrications would like to thank www.tonupclub.com and Drifters Bar of East Nashville for hosting the 10th Annual Vintage Motorcycle show. Cafe Fabrications took home the Award for Best Japanese bike. We were super excited to show the bike for the first time and win the award. The show was great the people were awesome and the bikes amazing. Thanks to all and can't wait until next year.

cheers

grant salter / jesse greening

IT'S DONE!!

So after about 13 months of working on our first bike it's finally finished. All the pieces came together and the bike looks amazing. The motor has been tuned electronic ignition installed. Which btw we will never use a points system again after installing the electronic ignition. The seat was stitched up by us. The clip on's are wrapped with a custom leather handle bar tape used on high end bicycles. So take a look and tell us what you think. We have a brand new bike sitting in the garage that will be getting the full treatment very soon. This bike was a lot of fun and we are very excited to build more in the near future. So stay tuned and you will see great things coming soon.

Cheers... Grant Salter & Jesse Greening

Pre Assembly

Here are a few pictures of the bike during Pre Assembly. Sorry for the poor pics the Digital SLR battery was dead. This was with my phone at dusk. But you can see the bike in its stages of assembly. The wheels are in the back ground with no hubs on them. We saved something like 11lbs by making our own wheels opposed to using a stock set up. These make a huge difference in the rotational weight on the bike. Acceleration and deceleration are greatly improved. Wrapping that exhaust was a BITCH and messy as hell. But we really liked the look it gives the bike.

The picture with the front of the bike showing the light mounted and the Clip On you will notice that we did an internal throttle and the cable housing exits through the Clip On clamp. Very nice clean look to match the rest of the bike.

Information

I know a few builders like to keep it simple and have no Gauges on their bikes. But once we saw the Gauges Classic Instruments wanted to make for us how could we refuse? This is a new Gauge set they were working on and let us test it out first. So when is comes to gauges this beautiful it required an equally as nice bucket to house them in. So in True Cafe Fabrication style we built our own. Also some people may have noticed from the previous picture we have no kick start. Well the bike also has no KEY! We made our own wire harness and put in a kill switch to the battery and a start switch for the bike. If you look real close between the gauges you will see a small black dot. Yup that is the start switch. With out reading this blog good luck figuring out how to start this bike.

Piecing it together.

Okay so it has been a very long time since this project started. The last time we saw some color on the parts. Well the bike is finished but I thought I should see this blog thru. Here is a picture of me (left) and Jesse after bolting on some parts. The motor and frame was sprayed a flat black with a hint of sliver metal flake in it. The headlight is bolted up and exhaust is wrapped. Tank sides on, rear seat pan bolted up. Shortly after this we made our own wire harness.

Off Topic

Slightly off topic here. I will be posting some more pics of the bike soon. But anyone in the NYC area can go check out the Museum I helped curate. If you dig hand built bicycle's check out the museum. The Jeff Jones bikes are SICK!!

http://collections.madmuseum.org/code/emuseum.asp?emu_action=advsearch&rawsearch=exhibitionid/,/is/,/516/,/true/,/false&profile=exhibitions

Fresh Paint

The bike is getting some color added to it now and it's really starting to shape up. We painted the bike with a Dark Red using Glasurit paint. Best paint bar none. http://www.glasurit.com/

Above is an image of one of the tank side covers. Below is the seat pan notice the cutout for the exhaust. As an FYI to some Nay Sayers out there. The seat pan below was formed and made by hand. That includes the exhaust cutout. Along with the tank covers.
This image below shows the tank covers, seat pan, and the oil tank. We decided to spray some Red on the oil tank too. Oh ya we made that oil tank! (by hand from aluminum)...
The Frame and motor will be getting sprayed with a flat black that has a slight metallic look to it. It should look amazing.

Vision

We could all use a little of it. Here are a few images of our headlight for the bike. We made all the components. We made the lens from solid acrylic and the bucket and ring from aluminum.

The image above shows the light clamped to the mounting bracket which we welded to the head tube. Below is the assembled light with a sneak peak of some color.
Freshly polished lens above and below. We chose an HID kit with a respectable 8000k bulb for a nice bright light.
This is what it looked like after coming out of the CNC machine.

This whole assembly will soon be offered as new product from Cafe Fabrications.